The best wedding sermon ever!
Extract out of “Stuck on My Maid’s Floor”
Dressed in a black suit, a black shirt with red trim and a Devil Wears Prada red tie. He is short and slender with a firm physique, his bright brown eyes dominating his face, which is slightly different from the ones gathered before him. His has smaller features: a finer nose and thinner lips. A precisely groomed goatee and pair of sideburns give him the look of a casino croupier rather than a man of God.
I look around at the enthralled crowd, bemused.
The croupier is dealing out God’s word. And it isn’t money he is promising, but something much, much better: God’s love and blessings. You can’t eat those, though.
Praise the Lord! It seems that everybody is a “winner” today. I’ve seen those evangelical services on TV and have always been thoroughly entertained by the whole spectacle.
Today, I was a part of it.
He paces from side to side, trying to find more directions in which to move, but the packed crowd inhibits him. Every so often he freezes in a peculiar stance, kind of like a mime pushing open an invisible door with one hand. He closes his eyes, then . . . opens them. What a show! Liturgy meets street theatre.
Usually, I like watching these performances on TV from a condescending perch, pitying the audience. It’s not as easy to maintain my smug attitude faced with a live version, but I give it my all.
“You are entering the covenant of marriage. There is no excuse, you must know you are getting married, sister.” He stares Daisy down.
“Don’t tell us tomorrow: I didn’t know what I was entering.” He throws his arms up in the air in mock resignation.
“Yes!” someone from the crowd shouts.
“No!” shouts someone else.
“Sister, you are entering a covenant.” Then he whispers, “An ark.”
He goes on. “Noah’s Ark was not a beautiful ark.” I straighten up and wipe the sweat off my face. Noah’s Ark?
“There is nothing beautiful about it. There is a lot of work that needed to be done, looking after the different animals. The place did not smell so good.” Brilliant. Street theatre meets sophisticated theological cross-pollination.
“No, the ark was not so beautiful!” he thunders. “But it was a saving boat.” He’s back to whispering now. “Inside there wasn’t much saving but a lot of hard work to keep everyone safe.”
I notice that the hairs on my arms have become static. It’s either because I’m impressed or because I’m standing too close to the speaker.
“PEOPLE.” The speaker jolts me with its forceful soundwaves. “Marriage is exactly like that!”
He sucks in air, puffing his chest as if he is about to blow the straw hut away.
“Marriage . . . is . . . a . . . full- . . . time . . . work…in… progress!” The tent seems to expand around his full-throated delivery. He waits for it to deflate as we take in his message.
“It’s a work without end, I say. You can’t give notice to one another, it’s a full-time work, but above all it’s a good work . . . Any love with limitation or a due and end date is not love at all.” He has just summarised the small-print Ts & Cs of marriage.
“Amen!” erupts from the women in the audience. “Amen!” escapes my mouth, as I find myself being swept into this mass euphoria. The preacher is now wordlessly mouthing the last part of his sentence again, “is not love at all”, as he bounces around the front of the audience. It looks as though he is sucking back energy from them, from us.
“Marriage is eternal love and I don’t care what comes tomorrow, I will love you anyway. I don’t care what time I will wake up tomorrow, I will love you anyway. I will love you anyway.”
The audience rapidly picks up on the payoff line. “Love you anyway . . . love you anyway.”
“I will love you anyway!” Now we are all shouting. I don’t care. I am part of this mass religious orgasm.
“Because . . .” He changes gear before the next sharp turn. “As I said before and I say it again . . . my brother.” This time he fixes his gaze on Sipho the groom. “When things get tough . . . lock the doors. After you lock the doors, you throw away the key and work out the problem until you are both happy.” He issues the command and I notice some of the women swaying rhythmically and occasionally clapping in time with his hypnotic delivery.
“That’s right!” one ecstatic lady declares.
“Hmm . . . yes!” another lady croons at him. Any moment now I expect an oversized bra to fly onto the stage.
“Until you are . . . both . . . happy.” He seems to be seducing them.
“Then . . .” He controls the suspense perfectly.
“Hey, ho, neighbour . . . ah, the key. It’s down there neighbour, can you throw it back?”
Such comic precision. I hear myself laughing with him, not at him.
“You must understand, my brothers and sisters, there are no rules in marriage. Rules are for children . . . true people that enter a marriage, they don’t run it with rules, they run it with a covenant, they run it with commitment, agreement, a covenant . . .”
Such unexpected insight. I have stopped laughing.
